Cordillera Warns Of Possible Dish Disruption

Cordillera Communications is warning viewers who watch its stations through Dish Network of a potential carriage disruption. Cordillera has been in negotiations with Dish Network for months over the fee the satellite company must pay Cordillera to retransmit its signals.

“Cordillera is committed to working 24/7 to continue negotiations with Dish Network, but we have significant doubt that a new agreement can be reached before the deadline,” said Terrance Hurley, president of Cordillera Communications.

With the current agreement set to expire at noon CT on Jan. 7, , subscribers to Dish Network may lose access to the following local stations:

KTVQ-CBS for Billings, Montana

KXLF/KBZK-CBS for Butte-Bozeman, Montana (plus CW-affiliated subchannel)

KOAA-NBC for Colorado Springs/Pueblo, Colorado

KRIS-NBC for Corpus Christi, Texas (plus CW-affiliated subchannel and independent station KDF)

KRTV-CBS for Great Falls, Montana

KBGF-NBC for Great Falls, Montana

KXLH-CBS for Helena, Montana

KTVH-NBC for Helena, Montana (plus CW-affiliated subchannel)

KATC-ABC for Lafayette, Louisiana

WLEX-NBC for Lexington, Kentucky

KPAX/KAJ-CBS for Missoula/Kalispell, Montana (plus CW-affiliated subchannel)

KSBY-NBC for Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo, California

KVOA-NBC for Tucson, Arizona

“Unfortunately, Dish Network has refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement with Cordillera even as we offer terms similar to those of existing agreements with every other cable and satellite provider,” Hurley said. “Dish may not recognize the value of our market-leading TV stations, but its subscribers do. Viewers depend on our local news coverage, demand our highly-popular network and syndicated programming, and support these local stations that in turn support their local communities.

“Collecting retransmission fees is even more critical to local stations because in the past few years there has been a sea change in our business model requiring us to pay the major networks such as CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox millions of dollars annually to carry their programming,” Hurley added.